The Gown

The Gown is the student newspaper at Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and is the longest running independent student newspaper in the UK. It was formed by Richard Herman, a medical student, in April 1955. In 2005 Dr. Herman attended the papers 50th Anniversary.

The paper is run voluntarily by students, and is funded by advertising without University or Students' Union assistance, although it is located in the Union building.

History

During the Troubles, the 30 years of political violence in Northern Ireland, the newspaper covered the deaths of local MP Robert Bradford and the murder of Queen's university lecturer and Assembly member Edgar Graham in 1983. The paper also interviewed Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Féin during the height of the Provisional Irish Republican Army's campaign. The Gown also interviewed the then little-known band U2.

Past contributors include Mark Carruthers and Maggie Taggart of BBC Northern Ireland, Henry McDonald of The Observer, radio and television presenter Nick Ross, journalist Eamonn McCann, Irish Times foreign correspondent Conor O'Clery and that paper's political cartoonist Martyn Turner.